NEW! By Barry Rubin

“There have been many hundreds of books for and against Israel but no volume presenting the essential information about its domestic politics, its society, as well as its cultural life and its economy. This gap has now been filled.”—Walter Laqueur, author of A History of Zionism

"[An] essential resource for readers interested in learning the truth about the Zionist project in the 20th and 21st centuries."—Sol Stern, Commentary

“Offering in-depth perspectives with encyclopedic breadth on the makeup of the Jewish state, focusing only briefly on Israel's struggle for self-preservation. The section "History" provides a masterful summary of Israel's past from its socialist beginnings before independence to the modern struggles with the Iranian regime. . . .”—Publishers Weekly

“A well-written portrait of a vibrant nation at the center of turmoil in the region.”—Jay Freeman, Booklist

"It is indeed just a starting point, but Israel: An Introduction, if disseminated among our universities to the extent it deserves, will at least allow students of the Middle East and of Jewish history to start off on the right foot. A glimpse into the real Israel may do more for the future of U.S.-Israeli relations than any amount of rhetoric ever could."—Daniel Perez, Jewish Voice New York

Written by a leading historian of the Middle East, Israel is organized around six major themes: land and people, history, society, politics, economics, and culture. The only available volume to offer such a complete account, this book is written for general readers and students who may have little background knowledge of this nation or its rich culture.

About Me

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. See the GLORIA/MERIA site at www.gloria-center.org.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

President Barack Obama’s speech is a fascinating document. The theme is this: absolutely nothing can go wrong with political change in the Middle East and that the United States helps moderate forces, defined as anyone who isn't actively trying to kill Americans. The fact that many of those revolutionary forces favor killing Americans is outside his purview. And the fact that his policy has supported militantly anti-democratic groups far more than the (far weaker) moderate ones is airbrushed away.

That’s not to say there weren’t good-sounding formulations in his speech. Either due to a learning process, the impact of events, or--most likely--the immediacy of an American presidential election to whose voters he is actually addressing himself—you decide—Obama hit some of the right notes also. The problem is the isolation of this soaring rhetoric from his actual policies. That's what's important here, not the discussion about the video and its relationship to the rioting which has drawn literally all of the attention in analyzing the speech.

By the way, what’s really amazing, but no one has noted, is that almost every word of the speech could have been given by President George W. Bush. Obama has totally accepted the dangerous "neo-conservative" approach to the region despite the fact that this label makes his supporters foam at the mouth.

In basic terms, Obama urged the world to support the good people and not the bad people. Why should the U.S. ambassador to Libya be killed? After all, Obama claims, “He supported the birth of a new democracy” and was allegedly in Benghazi to review plans for a new cultural center and a modernized hospital. “Chris was killed in the city he helped to save,” said the president. Yet the most powerful force in the Middle East views his actions not as saving the city but as delivering it to U.S. control.

The anti-American riots were “an assault on the very ideals upon which the United Nations was founded – the notion that people can resolve their differences peacefully; that diplomacy can take the place of war; and that in an interdependent world, all of us have a stake in working towards greater opportunity and security for our citizens….Today, we must declare that this violence and intolerance has no place among our United Nations.”

That passage is unintentionally funny. After all, for decades violence and intolerance have been central in Middle East affairs, and they will continue to be central. The dictatorships and aggressors have steadily gained in power at the UN. Indeed, the Obama Administration has supported many of these forces of violence and intolerance or, in other places, not stood up to them. After all, the minister of railroads in Pakistan, a country which has received billions in aid by the Obama Administration, has just offered a reward for murdering an American citizen without fear of any consequences for his regime. Amidst a thousand other examples that his offer gives a sense of the reality of the contemporary situation compared to Obama's rhetoric.

Obama says that the United States “has supported the forces of change” in the Arab Spring. But he does not evaluate these forces. The old regimes were tyrannical but what will replace them? Well, to prove he doesn’t comprehend there is a serious battle within the “forces of change” Obama could actually say:

“….We again declare that the regime of Bashar al-Assad must come to an end so that the suffering of the Syrian people can stop, and a new dawn can begin.”

A new dawn? Almost a century ago, revolutionaries were overthrowing the czar, widely viewed in the West as the world’s worst tyrant, and it was assumed that whatever happened would mark the beginning of a new dawn. Thirty years ago, those assumptions were repeated with Iran, where the world's worst tyrant was supposedly being overthrown and the result had to be a "new dawn." Each of these events generated massive sufferings and several wars.

The implication is that Obama believes that all change is good; that nothing can be worse in the region. This is a very dangerous conclusion, especially about the Middle East. It is not a strategy but merely a tossing of the dice in a casino where the dice are very crooked indeed.

Going all Abe Lincoln, Obama continued, “I am convinced that ultimately government of the people, by the people and for the people is more likely to bring about the stability, prosperity, and individual opportunity that serve as a basis for peace in our world.” Well, perhaps, but what does that have to do with the actual existing governments? These words are a typical Western view that materialistic interests must triumph rather than taking into account the power of ideology and the things regimes need to do to stay in power.

In 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of Iran's revolution said that Western observers thought the upheaval in his country was about the price of watermelons--that is, about how best to achieve prosperity--and that this was ridiculous. One-third of a century later, the Iranian regime is still in power and following Khomeini's radical approach. Why should we not expect the same to be true in Egypt and perhaps soon in Syria?

Indeed, his whole line in the speech parallels the view of U.S. leaders that if Yasir Arafat and the PLO would only be given their own entity and offered their own state, they would turn into responsible politicians who have to fix potholes and provide jobs, there would be peace and stability in the Middle East. The formula he offers has never worked anywhere in the region.

Whatever he truly believes, Obama’s publicly stated assumption is based on the wishful thinking of a community organizer rather than the hardheaded evaluations of a statesman:

“Those in power have to resist the temptation to crack down on dissent. In hard economic times, countries may be tempted to rally the people around perceived enemies, at home and abroad, rather than focusing on the painstaking work of reform.”

You mean like Obama's own policy of mobilizing people to hate the rich? But why shouldn’t Middle Eastern despots crack down and rally the people against perceived enemies, acting like he does but with the added violence and intolerance of those political cultures? Why does his thinking provide no possibility of that happening? Who is going to make them "resist the temptation" to be aggressive if there is no strong superpower that is going to hold them to account?

After all, this is a president who can praise the new Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Tunisia and Egypt; fall in love with the repressive, hate-inciting regime in Turkey, follow a policy greatly strengthening the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip, and ignore the likelihood that he’s promoting the Muslim Brotherhood into power in Syria, and then say:

“It is time to marginalize those who even when not resorting to violence–use hatred of America, or the West, or Israel as a central principle of politics. For that only gives cover, and sometimes makes excuses, for those who resort to violence.”

"Marginalize"? He has brought them to center stage. He explains:

“Burning an American flag will do nothing to educate a child. Smashing apart a restaurant will not fill an empty stomach. Attacking an Embassy won’t create a single job.” Of course, that’s the whole point. A leader who cannot bring economic recovery to his country after four years in office, for example, finds demagoguery to be a very useful alternative. That is all the more true in the Middle East. Burning an American flag indoctrinates a child into certain beliefs; smashing apart a restaurant makes people who have no jobs feel good.

At times, Obama’s statements read so differently in the Middle East that it is laughable:

“In less than two years, we have seen largely peaceful protests bring more change to Muslim-majority countries than a decade of violence. Extremists understand this. And because they have nothing to offer to improve the lives of people, violence is their only way to stay relevant. They do not build, they only destroy.”

Well, no, in fact the smart extremists understand that they found a useful tactic for seizing power, and with the help of the United States! They want to go step by step now to build dictatorships and wipe out everyone they don’t like at home and abroad. The ‘’less smart” extremists are too impatient, but their very impatience pressures their colleagues to go further and faster.

If one listened to Obama’s speech, one would think that this was the man who gave strong support to the opposition in Iran; the moderate democratic forces struggling in Lebanon and Egypt (most funds of US-backed programs to help Egyptians organize politically actually went to the Muslim Brotherhood); and backed those fighting for a Syria that isn’t an Islamist dictatorship.

Not at all. He has done virtually nothing for those forces. Nor has his government really done anything material to protect the rights of women and Christians in the Middle East. When he says, “Those are the men and women that America stands with; theirs is the vision we will support,” it has no relationship with reality.

For example, Obama said:

“Together, we must stand with those Syrians who believe in a different vision – a Syria that is united and inclusive; where children don’t need to fear their own government, and all Syrians have a say in how they are governed – Sunnis and Alawites; Kurds and Christians. That is what America stands for; that is the outcome that we will work for….”

Meanwhile, his government is overseeing programs that distribute arms to either the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafists. It organized a Syrian opposition council dominated by the Brotherhood. It is guaranteeing a Syria in which Alawites and Christians will be massacred; in which Kurds will face an assault on their region; and which will be neither united, inclusive, nor non-scary for children.

As I have said, there are many fine sentiments expressed on Iran, Israel-Palestinian issues, economic development, minority rights, condemning insults to all religions equally, and defending America’s freedom of speech. Yet these points have no relationship with what this president has actually done in the Middle East. For example, he has not made a single effective action, backed by real power and pressure, to defend the rights of women or Christians, not even in Iraq and Afghanistan where the United States had military forces and potentially effective influence.

Monday, September 24, 2012

“If you were truly/As keen and courageous as you claim to be/Grendel would never have got away with/Such unchecked atrocity…./But he knows he need never be in dread/Of your blade making a mizzle of his blood/Or of vengeance arriving ever from this quarter…./He knows he can trample down you Danes/

The following is satire. If you don’t like it please don’t burn down anything.

Chairman Muhammad: “This meeting of the Revolutionary Committee of the Islamic Liberation Movement is called to order. The purpose of this meeting is to figure out what kind of video we can make to get back at the Americans. Brother Ali of the Research Committee has the floor.”

Ali: “We have worked around the clock to come up with some good ideas for the anti-American video. We looked into ridiculing their religions. But we found out they do that already. Then we examined the idea of showing their women as mere sex objects. We found, though, that Hollywood and advertising had already beaten us to it. Of course, we didn’t give up. So we examined the idea of demeaning their values, their families, their communities. Guess what? They do that every day!”

Walid: “Bitter clingers and all that.”

Ali: “Exactly, brothers! But then we hit on it. The greatest idea ever. We are going to profoundly insult the American ruling class, the man who killed brother Usama, and all of those arrogant imperialists who invaded and occupied Libya.”

Yusuf: “How?”

Ali: “Ah, simplicity itself, my brother! Since their current leaders hate their own country, their own religion, their own values, even their own people we will hit them exactly where it hurts! We will make a full-length film about how great the old United States used to be! The sense of community; of cooperation of groups rather than class and racial warfare! An economy that worked because it put private enterprise in first place! We will make fun of their prophets: Obama himself, of course, Joe Biden, Saul Alinsky, Bill and Hillary Clinton. The film will show how they are behaving like cowards, bowing and apologizing all the time! Brothers, imagine the humiliation!”

Yusuf: “Brilliant!”

Walid: “Allahu Akbar!”

Chairman Muhammad: “Well, I think we have a consensus here. But, brother, do you have a name for your film?”

Ali: “Yes. We’re going to call it `How Obama is Destroying America.' Now that will make the U.S. government cry! And remember, brothers, we'll never apologize to them!"

Yusuf: "Genius! Sheer genius!"

Ali: "Thank you brothers." He pulls a sheaf of papers out of his briefcase. "But that's only the beginning. I haven't even shown you the David Axelrod cartoons yet!"

Sunday, September 23, 2012

It is amazing how events in international affairs that would have been easily and accurately understood decades ago are now surrounded by obfuscation and misunderstanding. Such is the case with Libya and the U.S. role there. Forget Obama's Cairo speech and all that bowing, apologizing, appeasing, and empathy. All of it is meaningless now.

The facts are clear. Along with its NATO allies, the United States helped overthrow the dictatorship of Muammar Qadhafi in Libya and installed a new regime. This government, non-Islamist, technocratic, and led by defected old regime politicians or former exiles, won the election and is now in power.

What does this mean? Simple. Libya is now a U.S. client state. In the eyes of many Arabs and Muslims—especially the radicals but not just them—Libya is now an American puppet state. Most important of all it is not an Islamist Sharia state. The revolutionaries—a group including the Muslim Brotherhood, radical small groups, and the local al-Qaida affiliates--want to change that situation.

How do you do that? One way is to attack the regime’s institutions, including raiding police stations to get weapons. Another way is to assassinate officials. A tempting way to build popular support is to murder Americans.

The killing of the ambassador and five other Americans (a Foreign Service reserve officer, two bodyguards, and two Marines) has nothing to do with a video made in California. It has everything to do with the Libyan Islamist revolution. This revolution will go on for years and will become increasingly bloody. It is nothing short of amazing that U.S. leaders don’t seem to recognize this.

Bush occupied Iraq and Afghanistan; Obama occupied Libya and killed Usama bin Ladin. Have no doubt that the revolutionaries—including the Muslim Brotherhood—and a lot of others view Obama as just as bad as Bush. Obama’s attempts at appeasement have further convinced them that America is finished and easily bullied. In his speech of September 2010 calling for revolution in Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad Al Badi said explicitly that the US has become enfeebled.

In Iraq, a combination of factors has defused the situation directly, though resentments born years ago still are part of the package of genuinely popular but also Jihadi-stimulated anti-Americanism. The surge won the war and the long-planned withdrawal was implemented by Obama. A government exists which is hardly a model of democracy but sufficiently stable for the foreseeable future. The Sunni have basically given up trying to take over the country; the central government accepts the Kurds having a de facto state in the north. A lot of people are still being murdered by terrorism.

Afghanistan, because it isn’t an Arab country, has a relatively small impact in the Arabic-speaking world and eventually the U.S. forces will withdraw from there as well. The Taliban, treacherously aided by forces including official government agencies in Pakistan, will go on trying to overthrow the U.S.-sponsored government and might succeed. But that’s a problem for the future.

As for bin Ladin, obviously his death is a cause for al-Qaida to seek revenge. But, of course, they’d be attacking Americans and U.S. installations even if he was still alive. It’s a myth that al-Qaida has been defeated. Precisely because it is so decentralized, the group’s local affiliates are quite active in North Africa, Yemen, Egypt (especially the Sinai Peninsula for the first time ever), the Gaza Strip, and increasingly in Syria.

Others who are not al-Qaida and never saw bin Ladin as their leader will opportunistically use the U.S. killing of the September 11 architect to stir up anger. They will also use inevitable periodic incidents like this You-Tube video. There will always be more such incidents. Jihadis are surfing the Internet looking for some obscure incident or writing to promote. That’s what happened with the video, which some of them translated into Arabic and widely circulated. And when there is no real such incident the revolutionaries will fabricate one, as they have been doing against Israel for decades.

Aside from everything else, Libya has two special factors. First, it is beset by tribalism and regionalism which create a complex web of conflicts. Despite its oil wealth, this factor makes Libya extremely hard to govern. Some tribal and regionalist forces will remain interest groups; others will adopt a revolutionary Islamist ideology. There is no way of resolving these issues. Any Libyan government will have to go for massive repression—which Qadhafi did and the current government won’t—or engage in a constant juggling game.

In Iraq, a major plus for achieving a stable regime was the common interest of Shias—though they quarreled endlessly among themselves—in sticking together to keep the Sunnis from massacring them and reclaiming power. The Kurds, while claiming autonomy, were also a stabilizing force. No such powerful political glue exists in Libya.

Second, the regime is very badly infiltrated—far more than Iraq or Afghanistan—by revolutionary Islamist elements. Extremists did a lot of the fighting against Qadhafi and picked up a lot of arms. One of the most popular and important army commanders is the former head of the Libyan al-Qaida affiliate. Anything that the U.S. government tells its Libyan counterparts—where the ambassador or embassy staff is located, for example—will quickly be passed on to the terrorists.

Of course there are many Libyans, probably a majority, who don’t want a radical Sharia state. Some of them attacked the headquarters of an Islamist militia they blamed for killing the Americans and forced out the radicals. “I am sorry, America,” one man said. “This is the real Libya.” But like those who are more moderate in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq such people have a real fight on their hands and they are not necessarily the better organized, better-armed side.

All of this is a nightmare. The United States is only at the start of a nasty conflict in Libya which is going to be very anti-American. It is shocking that there is so little recognition of that fact and an apparently sincere belief that all the problems there are due to a You-Tube video. Having a big problem is bad enough; refusing to recognize that one has a bad problem is potentially fatal.

Note: Remember the old argument that the Arab-Israel or Israel-Palestinian conflict was the centerpiece of the region; all the Arabs cared about, and what they judged the West by? Now there are a dozen other issues more important to the extent that this cannot even be hidden by the Western mass media and "experts."

Friday, September 21, 2012

The Syrian civil war has crossed a red line. Some people may think this happened a few weeks or months ago but at any rate it is clearly true now. The prospects for an Islamist (Muslim Brotherhood, Salafist, and Jihadist) takeover have risen high enough that it is better to freeze Western intervention. In other words, the West should not do more to aid the rebellion and should consider stopping its current efforts in that direction.

Here is a fact so shocking that it should be the centerpiece of any discussion over Syria. It is so important I'm going to put it in bold:

The Obama Administration is backing (Islamist) Turkey as the distributor of weapons supplied by (opportunistically pro-Islamist) Qatar. Turkey and Qatar want to give the Muslim Brotherhood a monopoly over receiving weapons even though most of the rebels are non- and even anti-Islamist. As this happens, the Obama Administration is thus working directly to install a revolutionary Islamist regime in Syria that will disrupt the region, help shred, U.S. interests, and battle with Israel for decades to come. A number of Republican senators see no problem with this strategy.

Actually, it's even worse. Due to historical developments, the Syrian Brotherhood is more radical than its Egyptian counterpart. To maintain illegality under President Husni Mubarak, for decades the Egyptian Brotherhood had to restrain itself. Those who wanted violent revolution and faster action left to form separate Salafist groups. The Egyptian Brotherhood today sometimes cooperates with these groups--whose party finished second in the parliamentary elections--but they are also rivals.In Syria, however, the underground Brotherhood had no incentive to hold back. Consequently, while there are certainly a lot of non-Brotherhood Salafists, there are also a large proportion of really violent, impatient, open extremists in the Syrian Brotherhood. To do a simple analogy, the Syrian Brotherhood is more like Hamas than those slick Brotherhood leaders in Cairo who care to fool the West with their honeyed words. A Brotherhood-run Syria, with Salafists egging on the regime, would be an instant nightmare.

And so Western and especially American policy is doing tremendous harm: not by helping the "rebels" but by working with Turkey and Qatar to help the most anti-Western, anti-American, antisemitic, extremist rebels, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jihadists from smaller groups all the way up to al-Qaida. If you are interested in the details read thisremarkable reportby Ammar Abuhamid, the best-informed and very honest Syrian analyst on what's going on.

In brief, there is a massive battle on the opposition side to see who emerges as the greater power--the Islamists or the anti-Islamists ( defected army officers who are nationalists; moderate Sunni Muslims from the urban middle class; conservative, traditionalist Sunni Muslims who hate the Brotherhood; Kurdish nationalists; and even local, non-ideological warlords. And the West is supporting the wrong side.

By the way, the Saudis have a slightly different perspective. On one hand, they want a Sunni-dominated regime in Syria that will be anti-Iran and friendly to Saudi Arabia. They wouldn't mind if it was heavily Islamic and since the main priority is destroying Iran's number-one Arab ally, the Saudis will help the Muslim Brotherhood and various smaller Jihadist groups. But they prefer a regime that isn't going to subvert them and create regional instability. In Iraq the Saudis supported Sunni groups that were affiliated with al-Qaida to beat the hated Shia. In Lebanon, the Saudis support moderate Sunni forces against pro-Iran Hizballah.

If there was U.S. leadership, a U.S.-Saudi partnership could promote a combination of Syrian moderate Sunnis and defected officers plus some sleazy--but non-Islamist--warlords. The American president would tell the Saudis--as well as Qatar and Turkey--that it regarded arming small Jihadist groups and the Brotherhood as an unfriendly act. That is not happening.

What is happening is that the Turkish regime and Qatar want a radical Islamist Syria and are getting the Obama Administration's help in bringing it about, an outcome supplemented by Saudi aid to America's enemies.

Yet now there are clearly different groups in the opposition, as Abuhamid explains in detail. To give one example, the powerful Syria Martyrs' Brigade is traditionalist but not Islamist, while the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Syria tells you its goal in its name. To compile a list of groups that will and will not get arms would be an easy task for the U.S. government.

Another issue that is being mishandled is that of Syria's Kurds. The easiest thing the West could do would be to help Syria's Kurds who just want autonomy, not to be subject to the current directorship, radical Arab nationalists, or Islamists. This would make the Kurds of Iraq, American allies, very happy. But Obama won't do that because it would make Islamist-ruled Turkey, an enemy of America that President Barack Obama loves more than any other country in the region, very unhappy and so probably won’t happen.

I’m very sorry to write this article for two reasons:

--The Syrians have suffered so much it is understandable that one should help end this civil war as soon as possible and get rid of the current anti-American and pro-Iran dictatorship.

--It would be easy to have a good policy toward Syria: funneling help to the non- or anti-Islamist rebel forces. Yet the United States has not made this distinction under Obama and neither the mass media nor the politicians even seem to be aware of this issue. Its help often goes to radical anti-American who want to impose another dictatorship on Syria. The Turks want a Muslim Brotherhood government; the Qataris do, too. The Saudis want to get rid of the current regime and replace it with a Sunni, anti-Iran one. With proper U.S. leadership and coordination the Saudis might play a constructive role but given Obama’s policy they will mainly just support Sunni Islamists as they did in Iraq.

As if to outdo America, the French government is actually supporting for Syria's leader a loudmouth former regime insider of no proven talent who is a radical Arab nationalist and someone who the rebels loathe.

Another problem is the prospect of rebel massacres. Specific instances of deliberate ethnic murder are controversial and some highly publicized ones probably didn’t happen. But some did happen. By helping the rebels without distinction and having no ability to impose restrictions, U.S. policy will be complicit in massacres of Alawites and Christians followed by the killings of Sunni Muslims too secular for the Islamists’ tastes. We also know, for example, that Islamist rebels massacred several dozen regime soldiers from a low-level unit that hadn’t been involved in any atrocities, because they did so right in front of nearby Iraqi border guards. Really nasty murders were committed by NATO-backed forces in Libya but that war—and the atrocities--came to an end fairly quickly and much less attention was paid. In Syria, a lot more attention will be paid, a lot more people killed, and it won’t end until hundreds of thousands of people flee.

Predictions that President Bashar al-Asad would fall quickly were wrong. The regime is surviving and even regaining some ground. It has done so by yielding parts of the country where local rebel governments run by strongmen, Islamist, or defecting officers have taken over. Each little area is different but there is no U.S. strategy to help those who aren’t Islamist and are less radical. So it is a tragedy indeed. But to back the rebels in the wrong way will just help impose on Syria another dictatorship that will link up with other Sunni Islamists (including Egypt and Hamas) to promote regional instability and anti-Americanism.

Does that mean we should want the Asad regime to survive? No. We should want the more moderate rebel forces to win, the Kurds to get autonomy, and Syria to become a really moderate and as democratic as possible state. The likelihood of this happening, however, is plummeting, due partly to bad U.S. policy. And without a lot more Western aid to the rebels Asad is going to be around for a while whatever we want or think.

So the second-best option is that the war continues. This is horrible. People are dying; tens of thousands are becoming refugees. There is immense suffering. Yet if the main alternative is to help create a revolutionary Islamist state in Syria allied to Egypt, Gaza, and other radical Sunni Islamists that is not an attractive outcome. Even in places where the Muslim Brotherhood won by less than a majority, as in Tunisia, or Libya, where the U.S. government managed to get its client into office, the radical Salafists and Jihadists are threatening to get out of control. How much faster that would happen in Syria since the Obama Administration sees no problem in backing Islamists in Syria.

So far I have seen absolutely no indication that any leaders on the Republican side understand this. Some of the latter, like Senator John McCain, are mindless interventionists. One can only hope that the next U.S. president understands the distinctions that must be made in Syria.

But let's be clear here. The Obama Administration helped install an anti-American, destabilizing radical regime in Egypt. It has a big responsibility. What's happening in Syria goes beyond that. There's no rationale of claiming that Obama had limited influence or didn't know what he was doing. The administration's Syria policy is a direct crime against U.S. interests. It is also a grave blow against Israel, would condemn the Syrian people to decades of slavery, and would increase the likelihood of war and terrorism in the region.

WEEKEND Reading

--Reader's Question of the Day: What does Obama want? Does he want radical Islamist regimes dominating the region? Are his advisors that radical?

Response: As I have tried to explain repeatedly, the Obama Administration has the following view: al-Qaida is evil and a terrible threat and must be wiped out. All other Islamists can be won over if the US shows it is not their enemy. After all, they are not attacking the United States directly. Therefore if the US is good to them, respectful toward Islam, and shows it isn't afraid of their taking power, they will understand this and their hostility will be reduced. Being in power will moderate them. The main point of origin of this within government was the CIA and, of course, Obama and his appointees in the White House. There are some at the State Department who back this idea but the institution generally has opposed it. Of course, these people follow orders and after a while start to believe what they are saying.

"Top Brotherhood officials say they are maturing as they grow into their new role as Egypt’s dominant political power under Morsi, a former head of the group’s political wing. But they say they also find themselves caught between the moderating force of office and a sharp tug toward religious and social conservatism from Islamist groups that sparked the protests at the U.S. Embassy here."

Interpretation: The Brotherhood really wants to be moderate and being in office is making them moderate but those bad extremists just won't let them be moderate! Solution: Give billions of dollars and more U.S. concessions; don't complain and support us.

So now we have the answer of the “best and the brightest” expressed in the most explicit terms by American leaders and the mass media.

The problem in the Middle East is not mass revolutionary Islamist movements seeking to mobilize the masses, seize state power, expel U.S. influence, overthrow all non-radical regimes, wipe Israel off the map, and transform their own societies through Sharia dictatorships, despite the fact that they have been working on this project for a very long time and discussed it openly in thousands of articles, speeches, rallies, terrorist attacks, and other actions.

Oh, no, the problem is that a guy in California made a video on You-Tube that nobody ever saw. Therefore the main task is to apologize, explain, and keep trying to make friends with the ideologically determined revolutionary Islamists who take each concession as help toward their winning and see every American vacillation as a weakness that urges them toward more aggression. These are people who never lack an excuse to kill you.

Here's how it looks from the Arab world on the specific issue of Libya: George W. Bush occupied Iraq; Barack H. Obama occupied Libya. Obama has added to the long list of complaints about a supposedly imperial America.

At this point, we have gone far beyond not being able to take the Obama Administration and the media/intellectual ruling elite seriously. They act as if Middle East history began last week. They act as if Middle Easterners have no politics or ideology but are merely mirrors (what a racist concept!) reflecting back what the West does. They have no interest in examining the actual evidence. Certainly, there are those in this Western elite who are driven by their own ideology, hidden agenda, and interests to spout such nonsense. What can we say of those who believe them? Well, the latter have no direct experience with the region or its people; they still give credibility to what the mass media says. They have no memory because they are concerned about other things, closer to home.

Nevertheless, they might notice that It has been the proudest claim of President Barack Obama throughout his term that he made the United States popular again. That claim is now in tatters, though no one has pointed it out systematically in the mass media.

It has been an assertion that Obama’s show of respect for Islam from the Cairo speech, to his courting of Turkey’s stealth Islamist regime, through the assigning of NASA the job of soothing Muslim precedence over science, and a hundred other things brought some result beneficial to the United States. One aspect of this strategy—as he openly told a visiting Jewish delegation to the White House—was his distancing America from Israel—is also in tatters.

The claim of Obama’s great foreign policy success is in tatters, too.

Killing Usama bin Ladin? A worthy action but which made the jihadis—even those who never followed bin Ladin—angry.

Putting the Muslim Brotherhood into power in Egypt? Obama himself admitted that the most important Arab state is no longer a U.S. ally.

Changing the regime in Libya? But now terrorists and revolutionaries view the government there as an American puppet and so they must kill Americans—the ambassador being the very symbol of the U.S. “protectorate” over Libya—to boost themselves into power. Obama doesn't get this and so will not be ready for the fact that there will now be endless attacks on Americans and U.S. institutions in Libya as the Jihadists seek to overthrow the government. This is only the beginning of a new war and a new Arab grievance. George W. Bush occupied Iraq; Barack H. Obama occupied Libya.

Concessions and groveling, of course, were attributed to weakness, as speech after speech by Islamist leaders said in Arabic but the U.S. government leaders didn’t understand and few journalists in the mass media explained.

And to overwhelm and make all of these collapsing pillars disappear, we are given some pitiful California criminal who made an unseen You-tube video as the cause of all America’s problems in the Middle East.

Do you know the real reason why these Middle East militants hate America? Because it stands in the way of their utopian dream of Sharia revolution in their own country and its spread to the whole region (or, for the wilder-thinking ones, the whole world). Nothing America does--except explicitly betray its local allies and put the Islamists into power--might conceivably slow down that hatred. And guess what? Egypt proves that even doing such a thing doesn't work!

Why were Americans attacked in Libya, a fact that seemed to bewilder Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? Because the United States, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, did not put revolutionary Islamists into power there. To get into power, the revolutionary Islamists must overthrow the U.S.-backed regime. That has long been a factor regarding Israel. It was the core issue for Usama bin Ladin regarding Saudi Arabia. And of course it was the motivation of the Iranian revolution.

In other places, where Islamists are already in power (Iran, the Gaza Strip, Egypt, and--more subtly--Turkey), anti-Americanism gets the masses worked up to support the rulers, reject Western civilization, believe Islam is under threat from foreign conspiracies, and thus support the regime. The Arab nationalists were playing the exact same game since the mid-1950s.

These people aren't film critics, they are revolutionaries. And, frankly, by this point, we are down to two possibilities. Either Obama will lose in November and a new president will have the difficult task of reversing all of this damage or Obama will be reelected, in which case there will be nothing left of the U.S. position in the region by the end of his term.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

So much has the
debate been shifted “that what thirty years ago was a common-sense given is now
considered a landmark breakthrough.” Victor Davis Hanson

You see, here’s
what you have to do. You’ve got to take the most basic logical statements—the
ones absolutely necessary to understand reality—and rule them out of bounds. For
example, there’s nothing wrong with the economy. To say so is, well, racist. And
there’s nothing wrong with a government policy that refuses to control the
country’s borders. To say so is, well, racist. In fact, you can’t criticize this
U.S. government at all because to do so is, well,
racist.

And you can’t
point out that America’s problem in the Middle East is not due to an obscure
video on You-Tube but to a massive revolutionary Islamist movement determined to
destroy American influence in the region, take over every country there, smash
the Christians, subordinate the women, impose a dictatorship, and commit
genocide against Israel. Yep, you got it! Racist
again!

This brings us
to the latest attack on presidential candidate Mitt Romney. It is impossible to
understand the Arab-Israel, Israel-Palestinian conflict or Israel’s situation
without comprehending that the Palestinian leadership doesn’t want real peace
and a real two state solution ending the conflict. If things were different,
they could have had a Palestinian state in 1948 or on numerous occasions
thereafter, notably including at the Camp David meeting and with President Bill
Clinton’s proposal (based on an Israeli proposal) in
2000.

So Romney
stated this basic, easily provable and highly demonstrable truth, without which
the whole issue makes no sense whatsoever. Woe unto him, as he is portrayed as
being ignorant, bigoted, and troublesome for stating the basic pro-Israel
position that most Democratic politicians accepted a few years ago. It was
precisely what Clinton learned when Yasir Arafat turned down his very serious
offer in 2000.

The whole
attack on Romney is rather humorous since media “revelations” about Romney's
statements--"revelations” all of which I'd heard a week ago and seen a month ago
in the media—now repeated in a Boca Raton, Florida, fund-raiser make perfect
sense.

Romney said
that one of the two ways he considered looking at the issue—a major
qualification—is:

“That the
Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the
pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to
accomplish.”

He then
continued doing the most basic, responsible thing a statesman can do. Romney
posited that a Palestinian state existed and then discussed how this might
create terrible security dangers for Israel, including direct attack and the
opening of Palestine’s territory to radical regimes’ armies. For the mean time,
the only choice might be the status quo.

This is the
kind of thing Israeli analysts, and many Americans, have been saying for decades
and detailing. It is the basic framework of how any country must plan its
survival, strategy, and national security.

What makes this
even more ludicrous is that it is not so far from Obama’s own statements, though
of course he has not said such things in so many years. The president admitted
that he tried very hard to make progress and failed; noted that peacemaking was
hard; grudgingly hinted that it wasn’t all Israel’s fault; and in practice put
the issue on the back burner.

That behavior
represents the conclusion that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is not ready to
make peace. It seems quite reasonable to posit that Obama has reached the same
conclusion as the one Romney articulated.

To begin with,
remember there are two Palestinian leaderships today. Hamas is openly against
peace, though a surprising number of people seem to forget that periodically.
The PA is genuinely relatively more moderate—a factor that has some
benefits--and certainly far more subtle. But on this issue the bottom line is
precisely the same.

Why doesn’t the
PA want a real, lasting peace? For a lot of reasons. Much, not all but probably
90 percent, of the leadership still believes that they should and will take
power in all of the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. Even
though they know Israel is not likely to go away easily or even at all, but they
hope that something will turn up. At any rate, as Palestinian leaders have often
said, it is better not to make any concessions and to leave the issue open for
possible total victory to the next generation.

Beyond that,
they know that their colleagues and even rivals will use any sign of
compromise—the kind of behavior needed to end the conflict in a treaty—as
evidence of treason. Their career will be finished and their life might be in
danger. Sure, PA “president” Mahmoud Abbas might tell a small meeting of Jews
that Israel is here to say but when it leaks into the press and provokes great
anger among the other leaders, he passionately denies it. He certainly isn’t
going to embody it in a document that would be simultaneously peace treaty and
his own death warrant.

Third, the
Palestinian leaders know that they have inflamed their people for decades,
spoken endlessly of the evil perfidy of the Jews and the inevitability of total
victory. Palestinian public opinion won’t sustain real compromise and the
acceptance of Israel as a neighbor. The PA’s own television, radio, newspapers,
leaders’ speeches, schools, and mosque sermons by its appointed prayer leaders
repeat the hardline every day, indeed every hour.

I have written
hundreds of pages of books and articles on the details of this issue. Space is
insufficient here, but please consider this one example. Barack Obama took
office in January 2009 as the most pro-Palestinian president in U.S. history. He
offered to give the Palestinians the most and Israel the least. It was a dream
situation if the PA and Palestinians wanted to make peace on the best possible
terms.

Yet what
happened? The PA leadership shafted Obama. When Abbas arrived in Washington for
their first meeting he made clear in a Washington Post interview that he had no
intention of negotiating and reaching a deal. When Obama announced in late 2010
that he was about to launch intensive negotiations at Camp David, Abbas refused
the invitation. And when Obama pressed Israel into an unprecedented
nine-month-long construction freeze on the West Bank, the PA refused to talk at
all only until just before the expiration of that period, and then only to
demand an extension.

So, of course,
Romney was correct in what he said. Indeed, he was merely stating the obvious.
In the current upside-down era, telling the truth is heresy, or at least there
are powerful establishment figures who try to make it seem so.

What’s most
important here, though, is not just this specific statement or this particular
issue but a basic principle absolutely vital to the survival of the United
States: If we are barred from recognizing the nature of our problems we will
surely find no solutions.

Monday, September 17, 2012

What happened in Egypt was very simple. The Egyptian government knew that a demonstration would be held by radical anti-American forces, including the local branch of al-Qaida, outside the U.S. embassy. Through the ideology, public statements, past experience, and probably intelligence penetration, it knew they intended to storm the embassy.

The highest levels of the Egyptian government decided not to protect the embassy, in breach of their international obligations. And they knew—or rightly expected—that the Obama Administration would not punish them for behaving that way.

What’s the difference between Iran in 1978 and Egypt in 2012? In the first case, the Iranian Islamist government let its supporters take over the embassy completely and seized everyone inside as hostages. This led to a confrontation. The more cautious Egyptian regime simply let the mob trash the part of the embassy outside of the buildings. After all, there are billions of dollars in U.S. funds and arms to be obtained by a little restraint.

The Egyptian case is also interesting from the Israel-as-canary-in-the-coal-mine image. A year ago, the Egyptian government let the mob attack the embassy and stopped them only when they were about to try to grab the diplomats inside. President Barack Obama finally bestirred himself and asked the Egyptian government to stop the assault.

They came for the Israeli embassy but I wasn’t Israel so I…. If you know that riff. By the way, when Obama said the United States did not consider Egypt either an ally or an enemy, he was admitting that his policies knocked it out of the ally column. This was a devastating admission which should have brought a devastating media, pundit, talking head, and expert barrage that Obama had "lost" Egypt, the biggest American foreign policy setback in the Middle East since President Jimmy Carter did the same thing in Iran. And Carter's sin--as I document in my bookPaved with Good Intentions--was a passivity that brought on disaster. Obama actively aided in bringing about the catastrophe.I have heard some commentators bash Obama for making a gaffe in saying Egypt was no longer an ally. That's not the point! Obama was admitting to the loss of America's most important ally in the Arab world. It wasn't a mistake. Obama, however unintentionally, spoke the truth. It's the reality that's so upsetting. (I bet that Obama is now being briefed on a long list of anti-American actions by Egypt's government, including ones we don't know about, and just blurted out what the intelligence and State Department people are telling him in private.)

In a few months, it will be increasingly apparent that Egypt is now in the enemy category.

Libya is more complex and I’m going to try out a thesis here. I know I cannot prove it but this scenario seems to make perfect sense in light of what we know. Forget about the probably made-up story by a left-wing, anti-American sensationalist British newspaper that the Obama Administration knew about the attack in advance. They should have worried whether or not they had any specific data.

But that’s not what’s really shocking. Here’s what’s really shocking:

Why was there so little American security presence on the ground? Why was the ambassador being taken out of his hiding place by Libyan forces that had no serious experience in counter-terrorist security and were badly infiltrated?

Here’s my theory: The Obama Administration wanted to show that it was not some bullying First World government that looked down on the locals. Send in a platoon or two of crack U.S. forces? Why that would insult the Libyans. Let them handle it themselves and that would show they were being treated as full equals.

When the ambassador was killed, he was totally under the control and protection of Libyan security forces, accompanied only by two Marines. Doesn't this strike anyone as strange? Incidentally, the ambassador’s two American bodyguards and a foreign service specialist working at the embassy were killed alongside him. Two Marines were killed while rescuing the embassy staff. With all the focus on the ambassador's tragic death, the loss of these five brave Americans has been all too ignored on the national level. That's wrong. They should receive broader recognition for their heroism.

What should have happened was that an American security team have been sent in to take out the ambassador and the others in a competent professional manner rather than trusting Libyans who were a) street guys a year ago who have had no training and experience as well as b) a force that was deeply penetrated by the enemy simply could not be trusted not to want to kill Americans themselves. Remember that the on-site Libyan security forces simply ran away when the attack came.I understand that within the State Department many are asking questions and thinking that the official accounts just don't add up.

Let's be clear. Libya was the only Arabic-speaking country--maybe also Iraq a few months ago--where the United States could have taken over protection without any political consequences. It is a real client state. And its security forces, being so new and so fully penetrated by the enemy, is probably the least competent. In contrast, when they let you get beaten up or overrun in Egypt that's on purpose.

So I wonder if there was a serious investigation whether it would discover that Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to show trust in Muslim allies—make them feel better about themselves; prove the United States wasn’t a bully but a real nice friend—and that led to the deaths of the Americans.

Remember Libya is a country where U.S. forces could operate freely if they wanted to do so and easily settle any Libyan government complaints later

Forgive me if I am wrong but how else to explain what happened? If this view is correct the deeply disastrous assumptions that have guided Obama Middle East policy have just resulted in the deaths of several U.S. diplomats and soldiers.